Upgrade advice for an out of touch enthusiast!

thepeteh

thepeteh

thepeteh

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Joined
2 Jan 2009
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Location
North Yorkshire
Right, my current rigs spec;

Asus PK5C
Q6600
ATI RAEDON HD 5770 1GB
4GB Geil PC6400
Kingston 256GB SSD
Creative Soundcard

Just checked my emails, wow... can't belive I built this rig in 2008!!

So, it's time for an upgrade, with a small amount of research I'm looking at the following;

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MSI GeForce GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Borderlands 2 & Assassin's Creed III PC Games £347.99

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Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £259.99

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Asus Z77 Maximus V Gene Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.99

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Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £53.99

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Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Orange (Socket LGA 2011/1155/1156/1366/775/AMD AM2/2+/AM3)
 £66.98

Total :£949.93

Am I far off at that? Could I improve or spend less for not much decrease in performance? I want to be able to play the latest battlefield games, fps such as CS:GO at a good frame rate, which at the moment my rig seems to struggle with.

I can re-use my Lian-Li A05B case, ssd, secondary hard drive, dvd drive and power supply. As you can see I don't upgrade often so this upgrade has to stand the test of time.

Any help appreciated!

Cheers
 
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Gav_881 said:
First thing's first, OEM CPU's come with a 1 yea warranty vs retails 3 year your call but i would pay the extra (you also get intels paperweight)

Have the chip and had the board before i decided to downsize to ITX, the OCing on that board is excellent i highly recommend it and whilst some will say you only need an I5 for gaming if your after long life i would and did go for the I7. Multithreding games are on their way so you may as well.

The samy green ram has a good following here but TBH its getting to be rather expensive vs the competition, if your going to try and screw it to the wall and push t to 2133Mhz then great otherwse have a look for a nice set of teamgroup extreem, as you will get 2x8Gb for that price especially if your willing to wat for a today only.

The 680 should make easy work of games on single screen for a good couple of years too.

Only thing i'm not sure about is the cooler, looks awful but its not aout looks i suppose.

The Vgene has great sound onboard so consider flea baying your soundcard too for a little more cash
Click to expand...

Gav, thanks for your advice. I've taken your advice about the memory+retail cpu and changed that now. The cooler looks odd I know, but once the lid is on the case I wont see it, the reason for choosing it was that it got good press/benchmarks on a rival website.

My current sound card is old enough that it probably doesn't warrant being sold but then agan, I will be looking at selling the mobo, cpu and gfx to help fund the upgrades.

I don't really plan on overclocking at all. Could I perhaps save some money on the motherboard without losing good on-board sound quality?

Cheers.
 
Lazder said:
Get a basic giga Z77 mobo for 80 quid and buy a sound-card.. no need to dish out 170 on a mobo... Motherboard shouldnt be more expensive than cpu.

If you go nvidia, get 670 and not 680 there is not much difference there performance wise not really good value for money.... its either 670 or 690
Click to expand...

I hear what you're saying about gfx, will take that into consideration.

Second point makes less sense, spend ultimately the same amount in the end? + the cpu is ~240 and the mobo is ~150. Hardly the same price.
 
Took your advice on the cooler and I am sure onboard sound will be fine. Basket price of £789 is looking much better than what I started out with. :)

Edit-

Just seen you've added the two baskets, will take a look at those. I already have a 256GB Kingston SSD so don't require another.
 
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YOUR BASKET

EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Borderlands 2 & Assassin's Creed III PC Games (02G-P4-2678-KR) £311.99
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £239.99
Asus Z77 Maximus V Gene Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.99
GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £39.95
Xigmatek Dark Knight SD-1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/1156/1155/775 and AMD FM1/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £34.99
OcUK Professional 2.5" to 3.5" SSD Adaptor Plate - Black £5.99
Akasa AK-455 Thermal Compound £2.99
OcUK Value PCI Express 6-Pin to 4-Pin Power Adaptor for PCI-E Graphics Cards (RB-527) x 2 £3.98


Total : £806.87

Just about to purchase :eek:
 
1, Could only see 1 x 6 pin connector in my case which is hooked up to my ati5770 atm.

2, Gone with what people say on here and reviews seem to be adequate.

3, Ooops, already ordered - oh well, it'll be fine... or at least it was when I used it in 2008 :D tech moves on I guess.

4, My lian-li case is very small, it was a conscious decision to choose an matx board.

5, My SSD is just balanced in mid air atm in my case, a £5 adapter wont break the bank to tidy things up but you're right I could have improvised :)

So I should receive all the bits tomorrow but I'm away working tomorrow for 5 days so the build will have to wait! sucks.
 
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